Latest / Into the Channel ⚽️ A Podcast Primarily About Women's Football / Lily Yohannes will play for the USWNT

Transcript

Lily Yohannes will play for the USWNT · Into the Channel ⚽️ A Podcast Primarily About Women's Football

0:04
OK. OK, OK, OK, welcome to Into the
0:10
Channel podcast primarily about wins football before you hit the
0:12
pitch. If you enjoy the show or love
0:13
women's football as much as your boys do, come kick it with us
0:16
already. Subscribe, follow YouTube,
0:18
Spotify, Apple podcast, wherever you like to watch or listen.
0:21
Leave us a review over your favorite podcast app links, all
0:24
of our socials and the shows of this episode.
0:26
I am your host Dino de Cespedes and as always I am joined by my
0:29
Co host Mr. Grant Angle. What is up man?
0:33
I'm hanging in there, buddy. In a in a week where I think a
0:37
lot of women's football fans could have used some good news,
0:40
some finally arrived. We got the news today via
0:43
Instagram. The Supernova Lily Johannes has
0:47
decided that the US Women's National team will be her home
0:51
for international football. Let's just let's just take a
0:55
well, actually, should we celebrate?
0:58
Is there something that we should be doing now?
1:00
How do you? How do you?
1:01
Usually do at this point in the show like.
1:04
How do you typically celebrate? Because I personally prefer a
1:09
frosty beverage. Get the old USNA in the frame.
1:16
Here. Nicely done.
1:18
Let's go. Cheers.
1:20
Cheers to you. Cheers to some good news.
1:23
How about that? Exactly.
1:24
It's about time, so let's start for anybody who may be
1:27
uninitiated, which if you're a follower of this program, is
1:31
definitely not you. But in case anybody has stumbled
1:33
over our show, Lily Johannes is a 17 year old phenom plays
1:38
midfielder for IAX. Her and her family moved to the
1:41
Netherlands when she was 10 years old, but she was born in
1:44
Springfield, VA, making her AUS citizen obviously.
1:47
Lily then started training with IAX women's team at the age of
1:51
13 and signed a contract with them last year.
1:54
In 2023 she played an aerative as Eve Brown for IAX and she has
1:58
the record of being the youngest player to ever start a game in
2:02
the group stage of the UAFO Women's Champions League.
2:04
Let's go. All of this to say, she's an
2:07
awesome young talent and anybody who's a fan, casual or super fan
2:11
of the US Women's national team should be very excited that
2:14
she's made this decision to join the.
2:15
USA let's go and I think it was real iffy.
2:18
I mean it's been a wild year when you think about this
2:21
Johanna story to begin with. So we got introduced to oh,
2:24
actually, by the way, happy birthday to the ITC Look one
2:27
year ago today, episode 1 dropped on the YouTube November
2:32
11th. Let's fucking go.
2:33
It's almost like our two stars are are, are rising, you know,
2:37
at the same time, just kind of like light reflecting off each
2:40
other. That's.
2:41
What's happening? Yes.
2:42
Yeah, for sure. But no.
2:43
But it has been a wild year. Obviously, Johannes gets onto
2:47
our radar when we're doing last year's Champions League
2:50
coverage, tracking IAX. I could say there's a young
2:52
player here eligible to play for the USA.
2:55
This is somebody we need to keep our eye on.
2:57
And then Johannes went insane in the tournament, LED IAX to the
3:02
quarterfinals. Tremendous tournament,
3:04
tremendous group stage really for that whole IAX squad and
3:08
Lily for sure was a standout player in most of those games,
3:11
I'd say. Now Fast forward after the She
3:14
believes cup USA has got a couple friendlies against South
3:17
Korea. Lily Johannes makes her debut
3:20
for the USAI mean we had been waiting very impatiently, I'll
3:24
say. And Long story short comes into
3:26
the match almost gets a beautiful assisted Trinity
3:29
Rodman who rocks a shot off the post.
3:32
A few minutes later, Liliana scores an absolute Thunder
3:36
strike 10 minutes after entering the match.
3:38
I mean, a dream start. You know, there's rain, there's
3:41
celebration, there's elation. I mean, we were we were flying
3:45
real, real high. And then just a few weeks later,
3:48
we reported on this show that Lily Johannes was invited to the
3:52
Olympics roster as an alternate. That invite we know was
3:55
declined. Not sure exactly what was going
3:58
on behind the scenes, but we do know that there was real
4:01
uncertainty there as to where Johannes would play her
4:05
international football. Now today, we get the news,
4:08
decisions been made and here we are.
4:10
I mean, I think it's time to rethink the future of the US
4:13
women's national team. Really kind of shakes things up
4:15
in just the absolute best possible way.
4:17
Yeah. I mean, you know, going back to
4:20
those friendlies, the the kind of lead up to the Olympics,
4:23
there had to be a reason for a young player to turn down an
4:27
opportunity to be an alternate on the Olympic roster.
4:30
What's going on in the federation Or, you know, you
4:32
could speculate a million things.
4:34
So, like, does this player feel like they could fit on this
4:36
roster? Does this player feel like
4:38
there's like a real plan for them in the federation within
4:41
the coaching staff? There are a million things that
4:43
could be going through a player's head to turn that down.
4:45
And so I know you talked about it at the time, there was real
4:49
concern that did the USA lose ground possibly on the
4:53
Netherlands with, you know, potential Dutch citizenship on
4:56
the table for Johannes on the horizon.
5:00
But now we get this news, you have to think it's only
5:04
reasonable to believe and her comments would lead us to
5:07
believe that they have full confidence she's going to be a
5:10
part of this team. And like you said.
5:12
Great point. It shakes up the roster in the
5:15
best possible way because what were we talking about a few
5:19
weeks ago? What's this midfield going to
5:21
look like at the 2027 World Cup? And now I think part of that
5:25
answer is pretty damn strong when you have a great young
5:28
player like this who's going to be entering her prime, or at
5:31
least the beginning of her prime in 2027.
5:34
Yeah. Probably.
5:35
I mean, I don't think we'll be old enough to enjoy an adult
5:38
beverage here in the United States still when another time,
5:41
yeah, World Cup rolls around. I think it's important to note
5:44
too, we talked about this a couple weeks back when we were
5:47
breaking down the US women's national team's matches versus
5:50
Iceland. Johannes in her debut absolutely
5:53
looked like she belonged and she was out there with Sophia Smith,
5:57
Mal Swanson, Trinity Rodman. This was pre Olympics, so these
6:01
warm ups were extremely important.
6:03
This was Emma Hayes's first real go round with these players.
6:07
And and Johannes just looked, I mean she was the player of the
6:09
match even though she played 18, 19 ish minutes, 19 ish minutes
6:13
and was also the story. So this isn't a player, I think
6:17
it's an important distinction to make.
6:18
This isn't a player that has the potential to be great.
6:21
This is a player that has great elements for game right now.
6:25
Absolutely. I mean, we talked about it a lot
6:28
last year during the Champions. Like it's, it's how we became
6:31
the internet's #1 Lily Johannes podcast.
6:35
I, I feel like we, we took that crown alongside being the the
6:38
internet's number one Women's Champions League podcast, of
6:41
course. Hosted by two Bros.
6:43
Exactly. Yeah, hosted by two Bros in that
6:45
division. That's our league.
6:47
There are so many elements to her game in terms of her playing
6:51
on the half turn, her always keeping her head up, looking for
6:54
who's available for passes, her ability to get back and slide,
6:58
tackle carefully and play good defense.
7:00
Breakup plays. Right now she kind of alternates
7:03
between being a defensive midfielder and a center
7:05
midfielder for IAX. If you project forward, she
7:09
could be the type of player in the middle of the field where if
7:13
you need her to play defensive midfield, that's great.
7:15
You wanted to play traditional center mid, that's great.
7:18
I think there are a lot of elements of her game that she
7:20
could project to be at #10 it just kind of depends where you
7:23
want her to be or where you need her at the time.
7:26
That's a great point. And I think how you got there is
7:30
you see her make big time defensive plays, like you see
7:34
her take on more experienced players.
7:36
Lily's got great size, great strength for a player her age
7:39
and she usually knows what she's doing.
7:40
She usually comes out on top during those take ONS.
7:43
But then offensively, the passes she's able to slip in, yeah, you
7:47
know, the angles that she sees that nobody else is seeing,
7:49
great vision, great touch, great accuracy.
7:52
So it's like this is a player that it's going to be hard.
7:55
I mean, we mentioned this, too, about Jaden Shaw being a tough
7:58
player to keep off of the 11. I think Johannes might be even
8:02
tougher. And the best part, We've got
8:04
some big time US Women's national team matches on the
8:08
calendar dangerously looming. November 30th versus England in
8:13
Wembley. How about December 3rd, The
8:16
Hague versus Netherlands? I mean, this is some sports,
8:21
sports movie shit. I cannot wait to see if Lily
8:25
plays what the impact is. I mean, that's gonna be a ton of
8:28
pressure in that moment, but you could see a player like
8:31
Johannes, like meeting the level of that pressure.
8:34
Yeah, I mean, how could you? You know, we've seen her respond
8:36
to the pressure before. I mean, she she played great in
8:39
these group stage matches. She was in the group of life
8:41
last year in the UEFA Women's Champions League and she was
8:44
just putting in performance after performance.
8:47
And then everybody wanted her to come on to the field during
8:50
those friendlies pre Olympics. So she does.
8:53
And then you had to feel like there is pressure there.
8:55
And we talked about it right on the heels of that match that she
8:58
just came onto the field and then like within it felt like
9:00
the first like 90 seconds or maybe the 1st 2 minutes that
9:03
she's on there. She just had played a real cool
9:06
pass, took the ball easily, and then just played one across the
9:09
field. It was like she's already
9:10
getting in a rhythm. She just plays beyond her years.
9:14
And so I think when you are a player like that, you're able to
9:17
kind of deflate the pressure a little bit.
9:20
Could you go out there with the confidence in knowing I can
9:22
trust my first touch? It's not going to let me down.
9:25
Now I'm out here thinking creatively, keeping my head up
9:28
and looking for my open teammates.
9:30
Thinking back to those matches specifically, and I mean you
9:33
could look at all the matches, what she's done for IX this
9:35
season, what she did for IX last season, also in the Champions
9:38
League and her brief cameo for the US national team.
9:41
It's like her ceiling is incredibly high.
9:44
You do see that with young players, moments of brilliance
9:47
are just like, Oh my God, like that was unbelievable from a
9:50
young player. Imagine if they were able to do
9:52
this consistently. You get that from Johannes, but
9:55
also her floor is also high. She's not out there getting
9:58
cooked and like, you know, having low IQ moments and you
10:01
know, being like, OK, well, that's a young player.
10:03
You making a young player mistake.
10:04
Every player makes mistakes, but she does not play like a young
10:07
player. She plays like a veteran from an
10:09
IQ standpoint. And then again, physically,
10:11
strength wise is able to keep up and even you know, sort of like
10:15
out duel some of the players that is it just you just walk
10:18
away being like that. I can't really believe what I
10:20
saw there. Yeah, I mean, she's had she's
10:23
had multiple of those moments already in this aerative is Eve
10:26
round season. There was a match in October,
10:28
mid-october against Fortuna Sitart where she has an assist
10:32
and a goal and she's just like hitting genius through balls.
10:36
She's playing great defense. I mean, this is a player that,
10:40
you know, if you're going to sit her in the middle of the park,
10:44
and I think everybody knows who's watched his show, but for
10:48
the uninitiated, I'm very high on Kroy Bethune.
10:51
And so if you're going to have a defensive presence like Lily
10:55
Johannes in there, who's also a distributor, and then you play
10:58
Kroy Bethune in front of her in some way, or maybe they're both
11:01
kind of patrolling the midfield, you just have a combination of
11:05
vision and IQ that's going to open everything up for all the
11:10
superlative attacking talent that this US squad already has.
11:14
Absolutely imagining Lily going like full box to box and having
11:20
free reign to be able to do that.
11:21
You've got Craig Bethune, you know, to sort of come over the
11:25
top there. The talent on the wings.
11:27
I mean, let's talk about it. US possession team we had some
11:30
fun with a couple weeks back thinking about that number 10
11:33
spot. We talked about them.
11:34
Hayes having a really tough job having to make some of these
11:36
personnel decisions. Obviously this is great news for
11:40
the squad, but you know, you do sort of feel like, OK, now it's
11:43
almost like getting a huge new chess piece and figuring out how
11:46
do we how do we reorient this? You hinted at a little bit with
11:50
the potential pairing with Croy Bethune, but where else does
11:53
your mind go with regard to the future of the national team?
11:56
You know I love good lineup talk.
11:58
Are you ready for it? Let's go.
12:00
OK, so in 2027, I don't know if we we should count out a
12:04
listener. I think people who've counted
12:07
out a listener before have been made fools of.
12:10
But let's just say maybe it's Casey Murphy right in goal.
12:13
Now let's look at the back four. How does Jenna Neiswanger, Emily
12:17
Sam's, Naomi Germa and Emily Fox sound as a back four?
12:21
Think we can live with that? I think we can live with that.
12:23
The one note that I would make is I think they alluded to it on
12:26
the on the telecast, maybe the Argentina match that Neiswanger
12:30
might be in a in a, in a spot where let's say that that spot
12:34
on the field might be open for some some competition
12:37
potentially with regard to, you know, where MA stands on it.
12:41
It could be more of like a playing style type thing, but
12:44
that would be something to look at.
12:45
But that's that's an incredible back four.
12:47
So let's let's go all. Right, we'll pencil that in.
12:49
Now what if we put Sam Coffey and Lily Johannes as our two
12:54
defensive midfielders, our two holding midfielders?
12:57
I like it. All right, now let's think of
12:59
the three we want to put in front of those two.
13:02
Let's put Mal Swanson on the left, let's put Cory Bethune in
13:05
the middle, and let's put Trinity Rodman on the right.
13:08
And then we put Sophie Smith at the top of the pitch.
13:10
How much intelligence? How much speed?
13:13
How much passing? I mean, you're going to have
13:15
Smith and Swanson just weaving in and out players, trying to
13:20
chase them. And then you have the genius
13:22
passing of Bethune and Johannes out there.
13:25
And then you have Sam Coffee just bulldozing players out
13:27
there, getting your nose into the mix, winning balls.
13:31
Johannes is going to help you win balls on the defensive end
13:33
right beside Coffee. That just sounds like to me.
13:36
I mean, I'm not patting myself on my back for the lineup I've
13:39
created here. I have a lot to work with.
13:42
You could even in some cases you could switch out Sam Coffee for
13:46
Hell, Hirschfeld. You just got players on players
13:49
on players here who could do a lot of different things.
13:51
Absolutely. And I think it does change what
13:54
the US is capable of offensively because I feel like even
13:59
recently the US women's national team is still playing like a
14:02
power puncher. Like, let's see if we could land
14:05
a big shot here. I think now when you introduce
14:07
Johannes, you introduce Corey Bethune.
14:10
These are players that excel in tight spaces.
14:13
Genius passers can sort of like, pass the ball through, you know,
14:17
the opening of a drinking straw if they want to like.
14:21
And that is an element of the national team that I think is a
14:24
little bit missing. You know, when you can't land a
14:26
power punch, when you just have to kind of chip away, chip away,
14:29
chip away until the door kind of creaks open a little bit.
14:32
That's not something that the USA generally excels at.
14:36
But I feel like you introduced those two players and a few more
14:39
years of development and all of a sudden it's truly how do you
14:43
want it? Like, yeah, pick your poison.
14:45
We can go fast. We can go slow and methodical.
14:48
We can break you down. We could fly past you.
14:51
I think everything's on the table at that point.
14:53
And I think that's the real coup here.
14:55
Now, the last point I want to make is you mentioned all those
14:58
players. And that's not to mention some
15:00
of the other options. Cat Macario, Jaden Shaw, me
15:04
official, I mean, who knows if an Ally Sentinor grows into that
15:08
kind of role. Alyssa Thompson, who cooked, who
15:11
cooked against Iceland, Emma Sears, who smashed home a goal,
15:15
Lindsay Horan, Rose Lavelle, These are veterans that are
15:18
probably still going to have quite a bit in the tank even
15:20
when we get to 2027. So ton of options.
15:23
I think we expect the game to continue to grow.
15:26
So that versatility is going to be important, being able to win
15:28
different ways. But I mean, All in all, just
15:30
just an incredible day, an incredible bit of news here
15:33
today. Yeah, I think you described it
15:35
accurately when you called it a coup for the USA, because on top
15:39
of that, on top of that roster, you might think these players
15:42
are going to want playing time. These are elite players who are
15:45
playing at the top of the sport in different leagues around the
15:47
world. Who would you rather have manage
15:50
those personalities and manage the football on the field?
15:54
And to your point of how do you want it if you need to switch up
15:57
playing styles, Emma Hayes is going to have a mastery of every
16:02
single one of those playing styles, and she's going to know
16:04
when to implement them. Great point.
16:06
I mean, perfect person to be at the helm.
16:09
Yeah, we joked about it, joked about a couple weeks ago, like,
16:12
you know, loosely being on the road to 2027.
16:15
Now it feels like we're on the Audubon to 2027.
16:17
We were just flying, feet slammed on the gas.
16:21
Oh, my God. I just.
16:22
I mean, these two upcoming US women's national team matches
16:25
could not be coming at a better time.
16:26
But we're going to have a real test against England and we're
16:28
going to a real test against the Netherlands.
16:30
Couldn't be more excited about the future of the team and this.
16:33
I mean, I just, I don't know if it's going to be in a week where
16:36
we probably needed some great news.
16:38
We got even better news and I think we could have expected
16:41
certainly as a show. Yeah, once again, football found
16:44
a way to kind of cheer us up a little bit.
16:46
So that is extremely positive. And yeah, those friendlies, you
16:51
know, for anybody, especially any kind of silly Americans who
16:54
might be England national team supporters, I can't think of any
16:57
off the top of my head. They're going to be very
17:01
interested to see A, does Johannes play and B, what's it
17:05
going to look like if she's out there with some of that that
17:08
great attacking talent? And can the Lionesses
17:11
accomplished back line hold up against that kind of attack?
17:15
Yeah well I mean hate to do it to you buddy, but that Lionesses
17:17
back line might look like a bucket of BBQ chicken to do A
17:23
Lily Johannes and AUS representational team that wants
17:26
to maybe come out and prove a point.
17:27
Anything else you want to hit before we get out of here?
17:29
I think that's it, man. You know, good job by you
17:32
circling the wagons and getting this together so quickly.
17:34
Nobody will ever know how quickly we put this show
17:37
together. But you know what your boys you
17:39
talk about, you know, Trinity Rodman speed, Mel Swanson speed.
17:42
Your boys are still pretty quick too.
17:44
All right, man, I think we did it to spend another episode of
17:46
into the channel. Sincere thank you.
17:48
Thank you for watching, listening, following, liking,
17:50
subscribing, just playing, hanging out with your boys and
17:52
remember to like if you liked and subscribe or follow into the
17:55
channel If you want more breaking news.
17:58
Not not much. I'm not sure how much more
17:59
breaking news we're going to get, but we breakdown matches,
18:03
we make predictions, we do drafts, we do a bunch of fun
18:05
shit here here on the show. So we definitely, definitely,
18:07
definitely would love to have you hanging out with us.
18:10
YouTube, Spotify, have a podcast or wherever you like to watch or
18:13
listen. Leave us a review over your
18:15
favorite podcast app, links to all of our socials in the show
18:17
notes of this episode. And a big thank you to my coast
18:20
as well, Mr. Grant Angle, a year in the books, a year to member
18:25
out here celebrating a birthday, getting it done.
18:28
I appreciate you bro. Likewise, buddy, I want to do
18:30
the show with anybody else. I appreciate you making it one
18:33
year with me. And for anybody who hasn't seen
18:36
it, please go back. Check out our interview with
18:38
Orlando Pride defender Corey Dyke.
18:41
I'm going to do it before the end of the show.
18:43
Corey Dyke, ITC Hall of Famer, I'm putting her in.
18:47
Let's I have to put her in because she returned the salute
18:50
at the end of the episode. It was just completely
18:53
instinctive. She's a great player already,
18:55
but we got to put her in for that.
18:57
With that said, thank you to all of you for watching.
18:59
Thanks for rocking with us. If you're new to the show and
19:01
you stumbled upon us because you heard about this little Johannes
19:04
player coming to the USA, welcome to the proceedings and
19:07
we will see you guys next time.